Page:Scott - Tales of my Landlord - 3rd series, vol. 1 - 1819.djvu/179

Rh under such wrongs, would have been held neither fit to back a friend or face a foe."

"Well, Master, I am glad to see that the devil deals as cunningly with other folk as he does with me; for whenever I am about to commit any folly, he persuades me it is the most necessary, gallant, gentlemanlike thing on earth, and I am up to saddlegirths in the bog before I see that the ground is soft. And you, Master, might have turned out a murda homicide, just out of pure respect for your father's memory."

"There is more sense in your language, Bucklaw," replied the Master, "than might have been expected from your conduct. It is too true, our vices steal upon us in forms outwardly as fair as those of the demons whom the superstitious represent as intriguing with the human race, and are not discovered in their native hideousness until we have clasped them in our arms."

"But we may throw them from us though," said Bucklaw, "and that is what